2012 Victories: Sonogram Law Upheld, Saves Lives

This is the latest installment in a year-end series looking back at a few of the hundreds of victories by the ACLJ in 2012.

One of the most important weapons in the fight to protect the lives of unborn children is information. For an unborn baby, knowledge is power – the mother’s knowledge that the baby is and looks like a small human being. This knowledge is so powerful that pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood focus much of their efforts to prevent women from experiencing the truth.

An ultrasound or sonogram is a window into an unborn baby’s life. If you have children or have ever seen an ultrasound, you know that it is almost impossible to walk away from that experience without feeling a connection to the living child you just saw. It’s clearly not a lump of tissue, but a real human being waiting to be born.

In January of this year, a federal appeals court made a significant ruling for life, upholding a Texas law that requires abortionists to provide expectant mothers a sonogram and the opportunity to hear their baby’s heartbeat before they are able to commit an abortion.

The ACLJ filed an important amicus brief in this case arguing that informed consent is a critical part of medical practice and that sonogram laws constitutionally achieve that goal. The federal appeals court agreed, stating that “such laws are part of the state’s reasonable regulation of medical practice.” Even more telling, the court stated, “If the sonogram changes a woman’s mind . . . that is a function of the combination of her new knowledge and her own ‘ideology’ . . . .”

Because this law is allowed to stand, this “new knowledge” will be given to hundreds of women in a time of great need in their lives, and countless unborn babies will have the gift of life.

To help the ACLJ continue to have the resources we need to make these victories possible and continue these fights, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the ACLJ through our year-end Matching Challenge. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar though the end of the year.

You can read more in the ACLJ’s 2012 Victories series here.